The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that half of all U.S. adults will have diabetes by the year 2020. This is just one of the major public health challenges that experts say electronic health records (EHRs) could help address.
Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC, recently said that he believes EHRs could be a major benefit to population-based treatment of chronic diseases, according to Modern Healthcare. By allowing doctors to track epidemiology trends and stay up to date on the latest best practices, medical technology could be a major boon to the industry.
Additionally, EHRs will enable doctors to help patients take more responsibility of their own care. Frieden said that doctors will be able to stay in closer contact with patients through the use of email monitoring and other tools, which will enable patients to provide more care for themselves in their own home.
"If we want people to do things, we should make it easier," but that this is not the way the healthcare system currently works, he said, according to the news source.
Studies by the National Institutes of Health have shown that an interconnected EHR exchange system could lead to major improvements in the way public health agencies fight epidemics.